For Smoking, Harmony
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - November - December 2011

Holly doesn’t get behind the wheel and turn the ignition key of her rusted-bed Dodge pick up without first insuring her Newport is flamed up and casting off white ribbons from its ever-burning cherry. Like today, with her sandy hair scraggly, her jeans wrinkled, no makeup, she cracked the driver’s side window wide enough to extend her arm, while she motors through her town of winter-weary villagers, heading toward the Agway farm supply Co-op and then the Grand Union for groceries. Her lips pluck the cigarette from the wedge in her fingers and anchor it securely in her smile, freeing both hands to make the hard turn off of Main St., south onto one of the lesser streets.

The Closing
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - November - December 2012

“Warm, yellow mid-morning sunlight; I love how it shows this house off!” her platinum blond hair glowing in the morning’s brilliance, radiating a blinding aura from her oyster-white business suit, she admires the home’s curbside appeal and slams the door shut of her black Buick Regal. JoAnn, the real estate agent for this two story, three bedroom/two bath Spanish-styled house, under contract to the sellers, has arrived.

Smoking Virtuoso
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - March - April 2014

When the famed violinist Dalila lights up, she turns the heads of concert-goers who flee outdoors during intermissions at Severance Hall, Cleveland. They are agog at how she enjoys a smoky duet with her Dunhill Black. One observer remarks “she deserves the title ‘smoking virtuoso’ bringing her gold Yves St Laurent lighter up to her cigarette to bestow it with life, and thus entwine with her in a glowing, smoky creation, flowing together”.

Three on a Match
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - July - August 2013

Lillian, in her blue jean jacket and tight-fitting denim pants, brunette straight-brushed shoulder length hair and knit scarf sidles thru a maze of Student Union cafeteria chairs projecting variously from their central tables, some supporting students slouched over them, others hunched atop the table at odd angles. Penetrating into the smoky, dense interior, she unhooks her shoulder strap from her canvas book bag, lets them crash to the linoleum and settles her coffee onto the sticky, beverage-stained table. Seated a few rows from the floor-to-ceiling windows, she glances despondently thru the windows at the patches of ice on College Avenue that signal that the wintery climate was overstaying its tenure into the spring months.

Her purple-yellow hands, numbed cold from changing classes outdoors, made it difficult to snatch the three quarters full pack of Marlboro Reds, peers up and around to see if her companion had yet entered the cafeteria, while her hands sightlessly pull up a cork tipped nico-promise. Janice slips it between her expectant lips without shifting her focus, and edges a Bic flame expectantly to its tip.